HOR. Art. Poet. 79.
Archilochoi, with fierce resentment warm'd,
Was with his own severe iambics arm'd. FRANCIS.
The rage of Archilochoi was proverbial in antiquity; which compared the provoking this satirist to the treading upon a serpent: A comparison not very severe, if it be true that Lycambes, and, as some say, his three daughters, were so mortified by his satire, as to be driven to the consolation of a halter.
In this piece, many adventures are mentioned, full of defamation, and out of the knowledge of the public. There were likewise many loose passages in it; and it is said to have been on account of this satire that the
*Val. Max. Lacedemonians laid a prohibition on his verses*. lib. 6. c. 3.
However, according to Plutarch, there is no bard of antiquity by whom the two arts of poetry and music have been so much advanced as by Archilochoi. To him is attributed particularly the sudden transition from one rhythm to another of a different kind, and the manner of accompanying those irregular measures upon the lyre. Heroic poetry, in hexameter verse, seems to have been solely in use among the more ancient poets and musicians; and the transition from one rhythm to another, which lyric poetry required, was unknown to them; so that if Archilochoi was the first author of this mixture, he might with propriety be styled the Inventor of Lyric Poetry, which, after his time, became a species of versification wholly distinct from heroic.—To him is likewise ascribed the invention of Epodes. See EPODE.
Our poet-musician is generally ranked among the first victors of the Pythian games: and we learn from Pindar, that his muse was not always a termagant; for though no mortal escaped her rage, yet she was at times sufficiently tranquil and pious to dictate hymns in praise of the gods and heroes. One in particular, written in honour of Hercules, acquired him the acclamations of all Greece; for he sung it in full assembly at the Olympic games, and had the satisfaction of receiving from the judges the crown of victory consecrated to real merit. This hymn, or ode, was afterwards sung in honour of every victor at Olympia, who had no poet to celebrate his particular exploits.
Archilochoi was at last slain by one Callondax Corax, of the island of Naxos; who, though he did it in fight, according to the laws of war, was driven out of the temple of Delphi, by command of the oracle, for having deprived of life a man consecrated to the Muses.
The names of Homer and Archilochoi were equally revered and celebrated in Greece, as the two most excel-
No 26.
lent poets which the nation had ever produced. This appears from an epigram in the Anthologia; and from Cicero, who ranks him with poets of the first class, and in his Epistles tells us, that the grammarian Arilophanes, the most rigid and scrupulous critic of his time, used to say, that the longest poem of Archilochoi always appeared to him the most excellent.